Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue

The Short


Pros
- Same entertaining humor as the first Deathspank
- Still has Ron Gilbert on board, which means the writing is still reasonably solid
- Amps up the insanity level to new heights with bosses like Santa, a gingerbread Rambo, and more
- Most everything good from the first game has been retained
- New areas including a wild west, war trenches, and the freaking moon are funny and entertaining

Cons
- Is literally exactly the same as the previous game but with guns, which don't actually change stuff much
- Due to the cliffhanger ending of Deathspank, it makes me think these were once two games that were split
- Humor is still decent but doesn't bring anything new to the table
- One game was ok. Two you start feeling the grind as the weaker gameplay elements become exacerbated.
- No improvements make this game feel like a cop-out

Deathspank: Saver (?) of Christmas!

The Long

I liked the original Deathspank. Sure, there wasn't really any particular depth to the game, but its lampooning of traditional genre tropes while still pulling out a solid enough loot hack-n-slash made it easy to overlook any minor problems it had. I loved the script (and would address my wife with a "GREETINGS, TACO WENCH!" for several months following) and had a blast with it, but when I finished I was pretty much tired and done with it.

So when Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue was announced and then released, I was looking forward to see what else they'd do with the formula. I expected they'd at least fix the problems of the last game (the tedium that sets in pretty quickly, the sort of lackluster loot, the obnoxious food-eating) before shoving out a full-fledged sequel. The first game was the trial run, and now in the second you bust out the serious humor mixed with all the improvements you've been making the two months (yes, only two months) between the original and this game's release.

Well, guess what. They didn't fix anything. Which is a problem.

Deathspank: An old dog with no new tricks!

This should be the shortest review ever, because gameplay-wise there is literally nothing new here. You still can auto-equip all the best armor loot, which is incrementally better with no real special effects (meaning there's no choices to be made, which is kind of the point of these types of loot systems). You still get JUSTICE and dispense it accidentally because the system isn't particularly refined. The weapons are even exactly the same with the exact same powers except with a slightly modern look (magic lightning wands are now magic lightning taser-sticks, etc). You get guns that function pretty much the same as bows, so even that isn't changed. 

I was willing to give the sort of weak gameplay a pass in the first game because it was just that: a first game. It was still novel, and right when I started getting really sick of it the game ended. Booting up a brand new game, however, to find nothing new whatsoever resulted in me literally sighing and going, "Oh, I remember this. I was done with this. Huh." As a second game, I'd expect at least one major change. I can't think of any, at all. Which is bad. 

Deathspank: Like your grandfather trying to use an iPhone!

The story and humor is still here, though it lacks the punch of the original game. Swapping out the generic fantasy setting for a more modern one actually hurts the game, because that element of parody is no longer there. Yeah, you go to some way crazier places in this game (an alien invasion in a dark forest, a wild-west desert, a disgusting food production plant, the North Pole, the freaking moon) but it all feels very disjointed and not really fitting to a theme. What the hell time period is this? We have guns but everything looks like World War I, until I go to the Wild West, and then into space? Did the writers just go completely freaking insane after the first game?

Again, the humor is still here, and it still works for the most part, but an important factor in humor is the circumstances around the humor when it takes place. And while a few parts (the Wild West and North Pole especially) do work really well, the rest of it feels disjointed. It's like the writers just wrote jokes without actually taking the time to figure out the setting or who was saying it, and that sort of "generic" humor really hurts it. I still got a hefty amount of chuckles from the stupidity (mostly because I think Deathspank is the bomb), but looking back I can't name one line of dialogue from Thongs of Virtue that really stuck out. I can spout off plenty from the original Deathspank.

Deathspank: Thinking Vietnam is a great time in history to make fun of!

While we are still in the same vein of "stuff that is exactly the same as Deathspank," the music hasn't changed. At all. The only new song I found was one that plays when you are on a boat (probably because there is no boat in the first Deathspank) and I think a song on the moon? Was there a different song on the moon? And maybe the North Pole? Ok, so maybe there were a handful of new songs, but the regular walking around music, battle music, and even title screen music was all exactly the freaking same. Which makes me believe (along with the fact the game came out only two months after Deathspank) that they had both games stuck together and then broke them up in an attempt to get more money. Which technically worked because I'm an idiot. Dang it. 

Anyway, the graphics also maintain the same look as the first, but with a more dingy, grimy feel for about the first 2/3 of the game. Look, Deathspank worked because it was colorful and silly. Fighting in the trenches, Vietnam, and other dark and ugly places isn't what I want from this. It isn't funny, and it isn't cute. It's dreary and depressing and really, really boring to look at. It's like they didn't even know what made their first game good, and just went crazy thinking up stupid places you could go. Actually, I'm pretty sure that is exactly what happened.

A few places look ok (again, I liked the Wild West part a lot) but as a whole it's dark, dreary, and boring. Any bit of charm from Deathspank is lost on the abusive relationship this game has with its art style.

Deathspank: "Welcome to earth!" 

So is there anything redeemable about this casually generated, money-grabbing sequel? Well...I still beat it. And after I got over my initial "What the crap? This is the same freaking game?" I still had a decent time with it. These games are addictive by nature, the formula designed to suck you in even if the experience is shallow and droll. It's like MMOs, where you know you are bored and you should do something else, but that underlying drive to keep playing makes you continue to waste time. And then when you accomplish some tiny minute thing the victory is shallow, like you've just burned hours you could have spent doing something, anything, and you would have gotten more satisfaction. Like play Portal 2, or write a novel. Something like that. 

Truth be told, Deathspank would have been better had it just stopped after the first game. I love the character and think the style is charming, but after tainting it so badly with this rotten sequel I don't think I can go back. Then again, I just bought The Baconing (the third Deathspank game) off some PC indie bundle, so I guess I'll be diving back in. I just don't expect a good time, not after Thongs of Virtue.

Two out of five stars. 

Deathspank: Shouldn't have come out of retirement.